The Boy Who Lived
by Stoneheart1
Summary: Harry is faced with the most critical decision of his young life. But how can he choose when either path leads not only to the death of someone he loves -- but of his own soul?


**Disclaimer:** Harry and company belong to J.K. Rowling, and they are used herein solely for entertainment. This story is posted to be read freely by all, and no profit shall be gained hereby, either now or in the future.  
  
**Author's Note:** It was always my intention to post my stories in the order in which they were written. I feel (and sincerely hope) that I've improved over time, and my earlier works suffer by comparison with my later ones, at least in my eyes. When I jumped the gun to post The Joining at the urging of my staunchest supporter, I left behind two earlier stories that are now crying to be dusted off and turned loose. This story is the older of the two, placing it first in line. The other will be forthcoming, though it, too, will be bumped in favor of the third story in the "Patronusverse" series, which I'm anxious to post simply to complete the trilogy. In addition, I'm trying to balance the darker fics with the lighter, and this arrangement serves that whim as well as may be.  
  
This is my shortest story, consisting of two brief chapters which are posted here as one. After the long journey that was The Joining, I thought brevity, besides being the soul of wit, would also be a welcome respite.  
  
Here, then, is -- The Boy Who Lived.  
  
  


***

  
  
"Mr. Potter?"  
  
Harry jumped up. The action set his head spinning, and he slumped back in his chair, his fingers snaking under his glasses to rub his eyes.  
  
"How long have I been asleep?"  
  
"An hour, perhaps a bit longer," the doctor said. "I hated to wake you. I haven't seen you sleep more than ten minutes in the last three days."  
  
Harry looked into the doctor's face, examining it for some sign of hope not evident before in the preceding 72 hours. He found none.  
  
"You don't have anything good to tell me, do you?"  
  
"I have news," the doctor replied. "Its nature remains to be determined.  
  
"Your wife is pregnant."  
  
  


*

  
  
Ron and Ginny entered the hospital cafeteria with leaden step. They spotted Harry immediately, he being the only non-medical occupant at any of the tables.  
  
Harry sat with his head bowed over a cup of tea, both hands clamped to the back of his neck. Ron and Ginny sat down without a word.  
  
Harry lifted his head slowly. His glasses were smudged, the eyes behind them puffy and red. Ginny boldly snatched Harry's glasses off his face and frowned at the lenses. Looking to left and right, she reached two fingers into her right sleeve. The tip of her concealed wand emerged, hidden in her cupped palm. She dropped both hands (with Harry's glasses) to her lap in a casual motion. A moment later she handed Harry his glasses, the lenses sparkling clear.  
  
Harry gave her a pallid smile, raised his glasses to his face. Then he tossed them onto the table and covered his eyes with his left hand. His shoulders shook as low sobs came from his throat. As Ron and Ginny looked on in mute consternation, the sobs rose in pitch until they became titters of hysterical laughter.  
  
Ginny immediately placed her hand onto Harry's and squeezed.  
  
"Hermione's pregnant," Harry stammered without warning.  
  
Ron and Ginny were both too stunned to respond.  
  
"It's the world's biggest joke," Harry half-laughed. "We've been trying for three years -- potions, spells, amulets -- all bloody useless -- and now, when she's on her deathbed -- "  
  
"Don't say that!" Ron said through gritted teeth. "Hermione is _not_ going to die!"  
  
"Harry," Ginny said soothingly, "tell us exactly what the doctor said. Is -- is Hermione still in a coma?"  
  
Harry nodded heavily.  
  
"Can she...I mean, in her condition..." Ginny was groping for words, but fearfulness and dread were numbing both brain and tongue.  
  
"Hermione's very weak," Harry said, his eyes blurring for lack of his glasses as well as from tears. "The -- the baby is a -- a strain on her system. If -- if she carries it to term -- she -- she may never wake up..."  
  
Ginny dreaded the question she knew she must ask.  
  
"So, to save her life, they want to -- "  
  
Harry began to sob softly.  
  
"They want to -- abort the pregnancy. And I -- I have to choose -- do I want my wife to die -- or my baby?"  
  
Squeezing Harry's hand firmly, Ginny said with as much hope as she could muster, "Hermione's young. There will be other -- "  
  
But Harry was shaking his head.  
  
"There were internal injuries. Her -- her ovaries were damaged...she can't...she..."  
  
Harry made a choking sound as he looked up into the fuzzy faces of his two closest friends.  
  
"I'm a Death Eater. Somewhere in Hell, Voldemort is laughing his bloody arse off. I say the word and somebody dies. Who do I kill? My wife or my baby?"  
  
Ginny jumped up and began to shake Harry by the collar. His eyes were squeezed shut, welling with tears. His teeth were bared in a chilling mockery of a smile.  
  
"You -- live! You -- die! Say hello to Cedric for me! And James and Lily! Avada Kedavra! Avada...Kedavra!"  
  
Ginny smacked Harry so hard that her wand jumped halfway out of her sleeve. She tucked it away hurriedly as Harry sagged in his chair.  
  
"Help me," he sobbed softly. "Somebody please help me..."  
  
In the chair next to Ginny, Ron was shaking with suppressed rage, his hands balling into white-knuckled fists. In his way, he had taken Hermione's plight as hard as Harry. Growing up in the wizarding world as Harry had not, it was second nature for Ron to assume that there was nothing that magic could not make right. But when the Healers at St. Mungo's had confessed their helplessness ("The human brain is a very complex organ which simply refuses at times to respond either to spells or potions."), Ron's frustration had quickly swelled into a malignancy threatening to devour his soul.  
  
"Damn that bloody Muggle Yank!" he bit acidly through grinding teeth. "He had no business driving a car if he didn't know which side of the sodding road to drive on! Even _I_ know better, and I don't even have a driving certificate! Makes me wonder if Malfoy wasn't right all along! Damn the lot of them!"  
  
"You're -- not -- helping!" Ginny hissed under her breath, sounding more like her mother than she would ever admit.  
  
"And I'll remind you that Hermione's _parents_ are Muggles! If you're so keen to play Death Eater, why not start on _them_?"  
  
Ron was about to respond when he noticed a nurse walking purposefully toward their table.  
  
"Mr. Potter," the nurse said with a restrained gravity, "the doctor would like to see you. I'm instructed to tell you it's urgent."  
  
Harry stumbled from his chair, nearly upsetting his tea. Ron quickly caught him by the elbow as Ginny held out his glasses. Pulling on his glasses shakily, Harry looked from the nurse, to Ron and Ginny, then back again. At last he nodded and followed the nurse onto the lift, Ron and Ginny supporting him on either side.  
  
  


*~*

  
  
"Harry, stop treating me like an invalid! I'm perfectly fine! And give me back my wand!"  
  
"In the first place," Harry retorted, his eyes meeting Hermione's, "you are _not_ 'perfectly fine'! You were in hospital for six months, being fed through a tube in your arm.  
  
"As for your wand, I'll return it on one condition: That you lie quietly in bed and eat your soup. Molly made it the old-fashioned way, without magic, using your mother's recipe."  
  
Hovering just before Harry was a bowl from which clouds of steam wafted delicately, filling the room with a delicious aroma.  
  
"Don't make me use the Leg-Locker Curse on you," Harry smiled wickedly.  
  
"You wouldn't dare," Hermione returned smirkingly. She sighed. "You win. But there better be _big_ chunks of chicken in that soup! And _wide_ noodles, not those little wormy things!"  
  
Harry grinned. He tapped the bowl with his wand, and it floated over to Hermione and hovered before her, spilling not a drop.  
  
Opening her napkin, Hermione looked at the bowl, then up at Harry.  
  
"Did you remember to bring a spoon? Or am I to drink it right from the bowl?"  
  
"Make your own spoon," Harry said with an air of indifference. "What am I, your personal house-elf?"  
  
He sent Hermione's wand floating toward her. She plucked it from the air as Harry's haughty facade dissolved into a grin. Hermione conjured a spoon and attacked her soup with undisguised relish.  
  
"That's what I like to see," said Arthur Weasley as he strode into the bedroom. "You finish every drop, Hermione, or Molly'll have both our hides for cloaks.  
  
"So, Harry, you two had enough of the Burrow yet?"  
  
"Arthur," Harry began, "I can't thank you -- "  
  
Arthur made a gesture of dismissal.  
  
"Not a bit of it. Our house is your house. Nothing matters except Hermione getting well again. Speaking of which," and Arthur turned from Harry to Hermione, "how are we feeling today?"  
  
"_We_," Hermione stressed the word with a touch of irritation, "are going stark, raving nutters! I've got to get out of this bed! It's a beautiful Summer day outside, and I feel like a prisoner in here! Just a walk around the garden! I promise I won't overdo it!"  
  
"What do you think, Harry?" Arthur asked.  
  
Before Harry could reply, Hermione caught up her wand and pointed it threateningly.  
  
"Answer carefully, Harry," she smirked. "I've spent a lot of time in bed reading of late, and I've learned a lot of new hexes you don't know the counter-spells for."  
  
"Don't buckle, Harry," Arthur countered, keeping his face as straight as possible as the corners of his mouth twitched. "There's two of us. We can take her."  
  
"Better not risk it," Harry said from the corner of his mouth. It was taking all his will power not to burst out laughing.  
  
Finally he could hold out no longer.  
  
"Let's go, Arthur," Harry laughed lightly. "I think Hermione would like to get dressed in privacy."  
  
  


*

  
  
Harry and Hermione walked leisurely around the Weasleys' garden, chuckling as they watched an occasional gnome pop out of nowhere, uproot a carrot or radish, then disappear into his hole again with his "treasure".  
  
Arthur, standing nearby, shook his head, his eyes crinkling with delight.  
  
"I wonder," he mused aloud, "how many Muggles find vegetables missing from their gardens every day and attribute them to rabbits and such? Why, if they ever do see a gnome, they find some way to explain it away. Bless their hearts.  
  
"And speaking of Muggles, Hermione, that was bloody brilliant how those Muggle doctors did for you. Could you explain it for me again? It's all a bit much for me to take in, actually."  
  
"It's very simple, Arthur," Hermione said. "There, you see that gnome nicking that radish?" Harry and Arthur both looked to see a tiny, potato-headed creature scurrying away with its newly-uprooted booty. "Imagine him taking it down into his hole and planting it in another garden and letting it grow to full size. That's essentially what they did with me. Only in my case, it was my fertilized ovum they removed from my uterus and transplanted."  
  
"Upon my word," Arthur said reverently. "The things these Muggles can do today. Our lot could learn so much from them if we'd only take our heads out of our collective arse. All this pureblood rubbish! Codswallop! You mark me, Hermione, the next generation will live to see wizards and Muggles working side-by-side for the good of humanity."  
  
Suddenly the back door banged loudly. The three turned to see Ron approaching at full gallop, his eyes bulging.  
  
"Mum sent me to tell you!" he gasped, nearly hyperventilating. "It's time!"  
  
Arthur's ruddy face paled.  
  
"So soon? I thought we had another two weeks -- "  
  
"Little blighter had other ideas," Ron said as he regulated his breathing. "Mum's already fire-commed the hospital. The midwives are standing by. But Mum needs you to help with Ginny. She's not strong enough to Apparate on her own. Mum reckons it'll take both of you to transport her. Quick as I catch my breath, I'm off to Diagon Alley to tell Fred and George."  
  
"Right," Arthur said, dashing for the house without a backward glance. Ron glanced sharply at Harry, who responded with a reassuring nod. Smiling weakly, Ron Disapparated with a soft "pop."  
  
Hermione's knees had buckled with the news, and Harry was supporting her as he steered her towards a nearby lawn chair.  
  
"Careful, Love," Harry said. "You need a little lie-down. Hold on, I'll conjure up a stretcher -- "  
  
"Bloody Hell you will!" Hermione snapped with uncharacteristic profanity as she settled into the chair. "Take my hands. We're going to St. Mungo's."  
  
"Hermione -- " Harry began, but she cut him off tersely.  
  
"I am _going_ to see my _baby_ being born! Now, are you going to _help_ me, or am I going to have to Apparate on my own and risk being splinched?"  
  
Harry looked into Hermione's flinty eyes, saw her mouth pressed into a razor-thin line of determination. Sighing heavily, he took her hands in his.  
  
  


*

  
  
Ginny Weasley sat propped up in her hospital bed, Harry's and Hermione's son nursing at her breast. On the night table lay her wand, with which she had cast an Illusion Charm between herself and the suckling infant. Hermione, sitting in a chair adjoining the headboard, saw profiled the familiar freckled, red-haired visage of the Weasley girl. But those who stood or sat directly before Ginny saw another face entirely: that of Hermione Granger Potter.  
  
Ginny smiled down at the tiny, red-faced babe, and that smile was translated onto the face of the illusion.  
  
"His eyes won't be open for a while yet," Ginny said in a soothing voice. "But I'm taking no chances. Until he's weaned, he's going to see the face of his mother -- his _real_ mother -- every time he looks up."  
  
Hermione, weakened by her Apparation in spite of Harry's assistance, was incapable of speech. But words were unnecessary. She leaned forward, her eyes brimming with tears of unbridled happiness as she watched her newborn son contentedly nursing at Ginny's bosom.  
  
Feeling Hermione's hand touch her shoulder, Ginny turned her head. Their eyes met, and Hermione conveyed a silent "thank you" that could not have been more eloquent were it a Shakespeare sonnet.  
  
Harry glided over to Hermione, placing an arm about her shoulders. He dropped to his knees and embraced Ginny with his lambent green eyes.  
  
"If I live to be as old as Dumbledore," he said haltingly, "I'll never be able to thank you properly, Ginny. You gave me my wife and my son. You went through eight months of Hell -- "  
  
"Heaven," Ginny corrected gently. "I carried this little boy inside me for eight months of pure, unadulterated Heaven."  
  
Harry knew this to be a blatant falsehood. It had not been an easy pregnancy. Or perhaps Ginny was speaking purely from perspective. For one who had been shamefully used and manipulated by the manifestation of Tom Riddle throughout her first year at Hogwarts, might not even the last eight months of back pains and morning sickness seem a virtual paradise by comparison? Nevertheless, Harry's love for Ginny had grown exponentially over the past year, as had Hermione's. And in the end, there was but one way they could express that love properly.  
  
"Hermione and I talked it over," Harry said, snuggling his wife gratefully for emphasis. "We want you to name him."  
  
Ginny looked at Hermione, who smiled and nodded as she placed her hand atop Harry's where it rested on her shoulder.  
  
Ginny looked down at the baby for a long time before she finally spoke:  
  
"You had a hard journey getting here, little man. The race was almost over before it was begun. But here you are, against all odds. Not all the Dark Forces in the world could deny you. You truly are -- The Boy Who Lived.  
  
"Your name is...Harry James Potter."  
  
  


***

  
  
**Author's Note:** I'm not sure why I wrote this story. It just popped into my head one day, and I wrote it down so as to clear the slate for other works to come. I hope it brings some small measure of enjoyment to whoever reads it. (Did anyone guess the true meaning of the title?)  
  
Next up is the concluding chapter in the "Patronus" series, titled simply: Always. See you then.   



End file.
